updated 01:19 pm EDT, Mon October 15, 2012

Microcomputer capable of more memory-intensive applications

The Raspberry Pi has received a RAM upgrade. The miniature computer has now got 512MB of RAM, double that of the original release, and allows the Raspberry Pi to be used in more memory-intensive applications. Despite the increase in onboard memory, the non-profit foundation chose to keep the price at $35, instead of raising it higher.

Even Upton, founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, said that one of the more common suggestions he received related to releasing a more expensive "Model C" with extra RAM. "This would be useful for people who want to use the Pi as a general-purpose computer, with multiple large applications running concurrently," he wrote on the official blog.

Customers have reportedly started to receive the new Raspberry Pi boards with the higher RAM allocations, and will need to update their firmware to take advantage of the memory increase. Recently, a "Turbo Mode" was unlocked in the firmware allowing the board to run at 1GHz, a far higher clock speed than the 700MHz processor was originally set to run.